US GQ March 05; Russell Crowe On The Al Qaeda Plot To Kidnap Him

US GQ March 05; Russell Crowe On The Al Qaeda Plot To Kidnap Him

NEW YORK, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- In the March issue of the US edition of GQ magazine on newsstands now, Russell Crowe talks about the Al Qaeda kidnapping subplot that followed him through the 2001 Oscar season.

(Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050309/NYW185 )

GQ: In the midst of the Oscar celebrations and the success of Gladiator, there was a rather strange kidnapping subplot. What can you explain about that now?

RC: We just arrived in Los Angeles, and we got contacted by the FBI, and they arrived at the hotel we were staying at, and they went through this big elaborate speech, telling us that for the whole time we were going to be in America, they were going to be around and part of life. You know -- oh, I shouldn't say things like this -- I do wonder if it was some kind of PR thing to attract sympathy toward me, because it seemed very odd. Suddenly, it looks like I think I'm f***ing Elvis Presley, because everywhere I go there are all these FBI guys around.

GQ: But who was supposed to be after you?

RC: [pauses] Um ... well, that was the first conversation in my life that I'd ever heard the phrase Al Qaeda. And it was something to do with some recording picked up by a French policewoman, I think, in either Libya or Algiers. And it was a destabilization plan. I don't think that I was the only person. But it was about -- and here's another little touch of irony -- it was about taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural-destabilization plan.

The complete interview with Russell Crowe, "The Hard-Ass," appears in the March 2005 issue of the US edition of GQ, on newsstands now. For the complete text, please contact Mary Wible, GQ public relations, 212.286.7709 or mary_wible@condenast.com. GQ is the leading men's general-interest magazine and part of Conde Nast Publications, Inc.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050309/NYW185 AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN5 PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com Source: US GQ

CONTACT: Mary Wible of GQ public relations, +1-212-286-7709, mary_wible@condenast.com

Web site: http://www.gq.com/

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